Pilot Project Brewing - The Incubator That's Launching the Next Big Beverage Brands

Ramon Vela (00:02.818)
Hey everyone, this is Ramon Vela and this is another episode of the story of a brand. Like always, we have an amazing guest and brand that we're going to feature on today's show. But before we do pause one, two, three. Welcome back everyone. This is Ramon Vela. We have an amazing show today. I have with me a guest that I can't wait to dive into this because this is something that's near and dear to my heart.

a company, a brand that helps other brands. And I really want to dive into this. So let's just get started. I have with me Dan Able, who is co-founder and CEO of Pilot Project Brewing. Welcome to the show.

Dan Abel (00:45.685)
Thanks so much, thanks for having me.

Ramon Vela (00:48.034)
Well, I appreciate it. And like I said, I didn't know anything about your company, but it turns out that we've, have people that we know in common. We've had brands in common. and so was happy to see that. And we know a lot of people, similar people, and you are working in an area that, that is a great interest to me, especially recently. There's been a lot of.

a lot of trends in this area and in brewing and alcohol and so forth and non alcohol. So I can't wait to dive into that. But I always like to make sure that we kind of know who we're speaking to. I always like the listeners to know that there's real people behind these companies that we see and a great way to get to know someone is through understanding what they're grateful for. So if you don't mind,

Share with me a moment or a memory when someone did something for you that just made you feel grateful because it meant that they believed in you, your vision, or your potential.

Dan Abel (01:50.037)
Sure, no, it's a great question to kick off with. I know it's cliche, or it probably comes off as cliche, but when I think about the leap of faith that we took with launching Pilot Project, you know, the leap of faith really happened seven, eight years ago. It was, it sounds, it's a funny way of saying it, but it's actually like the permission from my wife, Jess.

Ramon Vela (02:18.062)
Hmm.

Dan Abel (02:19.463)
the, cause what came with that quote unquote permission, and it's not like I had to sit there on my knees and beg. but it was, we had a, you we had a lifestyle that we could rely on prior to launching pilot project. we lived in, New York and, we're, you know, we, the money was coming in, we knew what to expect and we were able to live our life as, as, as we were taking that.

this jump and getting her support on it, we had to significantly change our lifestyle. It was a very real decision that she and I had to make together. And so not only was it the permission to change our lifestyle, it was the permission to, and belief that the risk that I was about to take for us would, you know.

it in theory, benefit us in some way, or form in the future, whether financially or personally or emotionally, what have you, that it would send us in a positive trajectory and not the opposite. So that confidence that came with the permission, if you will, kind of, it gave me my first boost, right? Knowing that I was making the right choice.

Ramon Vela (03:41.874)
and I thank you so much for sharing that. And that's one of those things, and I appreciate it for lots of reasons. One of the main reasons is that you don't really hear that all the time in terms of entrepreneurship. And, you know, there's always this like meme of the entrepreneur, you know, the island, you know, the sole entrepreneur kind of making his way through.

you know, climbing the mountain and whatnot. But the reality is there's a lot of people that are, that are supporters of ours who are along the way, who sometimes they don't have a choice, you know, like some of our family members, whatever they, they support us and they're going to, and we're in their lives and you indirectly your decision involves them as well. because your time and your resources are going to be, you know, focused on certain things.

And then of course your partner, in this case, your, your wife, you know, you, you can do it alone and you can do it. even if she didn't want it necessarily, I'm sure there's a gotta be a way, but it's always better to have someone's full support and with you, along the way, because it's just so much harder to do that. And, as entrepreneurs, we've, we don't, lot of times we don't think about that. We don't think about that.

Dan Abel (04:54.932)
Hahaha.

Ramon Vela (05:08.948)
my decision is going to affect all these people, especially the ones closest to me. And it's just crucial to have somebody and fortunate because remember, she probably didn't, and I don't know, I'm just assuming, but she may or may not have known that you wanted to be an entrepreneur when you're married and you made that decision afterwards, right?

Dan Abel (05:28.557)
no. Yeah, it was a total surprise. Yes. I'm not a serial entrepreneur. I was in a corporate job that was steady. was no there was no indication that one day I was going to throw our entire life into a tailspin or a positive tailspin. That's probably the wrong word. But but no, I mean, it was it was something that she learned as as we evolved. And honestly, it was something that I learned. think I always was I always had a curiosity about

about entrepreneurship, I've never been a, you know, a subject matter expert on any one thing. And so the idea of being able to build something from scratch felt, important to me. then the other side of this too, is like part of that permission and part of that confidence also came with. I'm a co-founder, right? I'm not the only person that launched this. My, my co-founder, the gentleman named Jordan Radke. He's my lifetime best friend. And, and, you know, there's some.

people will scratch their head or tilt when they hear that best friends co-founded a company and are still six years later, not trying to kill each other. She gave the confidence that the union that I was developing with Jordan as a business partner was the right one. And so, you know, she validated me in a number of different ways by giving the thumbs up.

Ramon Vela (06:44.439)
Yeah.

Ramon Vela (06:51.682)
Wow, I love that. And you know, it sounds like you have a little bit of a similar relationship with your wife as I do with mine. And in that, I feel like my wife's instincts are better than mine in many ways. Like I will ask her something and she doesn't have the business background or anything like that, but I'll ask her something. And even though she may not know the person I'm dealing with, whatever, but she just has this instinct where she kind of knows.

You know, like if I ask her, uh, Hey, we go on this deal or whatnot? And, and she normally has this really good, just really good instincts. so it's, know what I mean? Like, it's just like, I always ask her, you know, what her opinion is on certain things. And it's just, you know, some people just have really good instincts on things. So anyhow, especially with people. Um, um, so I read a little bit about your origin stories.

Dan Abel (07:38.803)
Yes, 100%.

Ramon Vela (07:46.806)
And I was curious about that, especially after I just heard this, heard what you just said a second ago about not being a serial entrepreneur and so forth. And if I understand correctly, you and your friend were, were hanging out and you started thinking about you guys, I guess we're, home brewers or something like that. And you started thinking about, you know, how hard it was to, to, to start something. And, and, and if that part of the origin story is

correct, my next question is that, well, if you guys didn't have that background already, wasn't that gonna be like an uphill battle, like to figure out how to help others or how to create what you guys were planning on creating?

Dan Abel (08:35.189)
well, so what's, what's fascinating is that my background. So yes, that is, that is an aspect of the origin story. was no doubt. Jordan and I were home brewing in my garage and rat and then. You know, the cliched version of a lot of, startup, beverage brands is that, you know, we, we shared it with our friends and family and they couldn't get enough of it. And so we said, well, let's, let's turn into a business and.

that isn't the perspective that he and I had when, when we started doing research, excuse me, when we started doing research into what goes into launching a, at the time, a beer brewery. Now we're all things beverage, but a brewery, we learned, wow, this is like, we're talking about federal compliance, state to state compliance. There's a three tier system, which, separates by law, you know, the producer of a beverage, the distributor of a beverage, and then the retailer of a beverage.

Nevermind then all the capital required to build your facility. We kind of said like, who has the time, the money and the wherewithal to do all of it? And that was, you know, I kind of contributed to the argument there. But then to be frank, a lot of the concept was inspired by the music industry. My background prior to launching Pilot was in music. I graduated from the University of Wisconsin and much to my...

parents chagrin in the spirit of telling cliche stories. I graduated with a marketing and economics degree and I moved to LA to play music. But what's so cool about the music industry and really me getting my start at that time is that I as an artist, sure I had a business background but I didn't need to because there are so many resources available to musicians, to artists, to

Ramon Vela (10:10.638)
He

Dan Abel (10:30.361)
thrive creatively. If I wanted to record an album, I didn't have build my own studio. went to one. If I wanted to syndicate my record to radio stations, I worked with a record label. I wanted to book a tour. I worked with an agent, so on and so forth, right? And you think about that, the logic that goes into building industry, building all of these resources around creatives.

that can be applied to any industry. And so when Jordan and I were going through the like, how does this work for startup beer brands? These are creative people coming up with, you know, logical, but also fantastical beverages. How did these artists thrive? And the reality is we're asking these artists, these creatives to

build their own recording studio by the merit of building your own brewery. We're asking them to then syndicate their record to radio stations by saying, figure out distribution. And by the way, there's state to state compliance that if you don't do it right, you go to jail. And so we said, well, this is nonsense. We're not investing in our creatives. Let's do that. Let's build a recording studio and music label for breweries.

Ramon Vela (11:34.606)
you

Dan Abel (11:48.245)
But now, fast forward a few years, beverage businesses at large. I don't know if that hit exactly on your question, but that's...

Ramon Vela (11:53.185)
Mm.

No, no, that's perfect. And I love the analogy. And you're absolutely right. I mean, it definitely does apply as I'm thinking about it. And for everyone out there, if you want to take a look at what we're talking about, you can go to pilotprojectbrewery.com. Pilot, brewing, I'm sorry. pilotprojectbrewery.com. I wrote that wrong here. Let me just make sure I write it right. Pilot.

Dan Abel (12:14.324)
of brewing.

Ramon Vela (12:25.678)
project brewing.com three words pilot project and then brewing.com and and so for everyone out there it's a incubator as well as a restaurant we're going to dive into all of that in a second so that analogy is so that example so great because it doesn't that that encompass that really captures the challenge that a lot of the people who start these have to undertake

And the interesting thing is, this just based on my experience, is that many of these people who start these businesses don't quite understand how difficult the road is because of all those things that you mentioned. They learn about it and they learn the hard way usually. But fortunately now they have someone like you. But I mean, it's very, very difficult. And I've heard time and time again,

just like how difficult it is, whether it's on the distribution size or the, like you said, states or online sales, whatever it is, there's a lot of regulations, a lot of things I need to keep in mind. And so as you were getting this started, as you were contemplating this and had this idea, how did you guys get started with that? Did you decide to kind of incubate your own brand internally? Did you start working with others right off the bat?

How did you structure it in the beginning or start it? And then how did you attract other folks to the business?

Dan Abel (13:59.369)
Yeah, so there was kind of two different answers to that. There's the concept validation piece, right? Making sure that this was a problem that we were actually going to be solving or that we weren't inventing a problem. And so that first part really just came in and canvassing breweries across the country. We met with dozens of different founders, asked them the problems that they run into or that they ran into. We talked to brewery that never actually opened.

there was a Netflix show that was talking about the launch of a brewery. contacted one of the brands in that series, probably it wasn't Netflix, but it was something. But anyway, we contacted one of the breweries in there and these themes were just coming out of money being one of them, not knowing you have to be a business leader and an engineer.

and a lawyer and a brand builder and all these different things at once. Maybe they had one or two of those areas of expertise in spades, but they certainly didn't have the others. And so we just started seeing all of these pieces of the puzzle constantly, you know, becoming problems for all these different brands. so conceptually we said, okay, well, all of these people have had to forge their own river, but they did it and there were, you know,

It was the river was right with rocks, right? so we knew that there was something that we could help with in that space. we then also knew that by launching this concept, God forbid it didn't work out. We could just fall back and be a, you know, a brewery. There was, there was a, an exit strategy that wasn't blowing up the entire business. was okay. Shift the concept and just become a brewery. Now.

It did take a couple of years of planning, understanding the legal necessities of doing the business that we were trying to seek because of the nature of it is a first of its kind concept in that sense. But while those two years transpired, we were constructing our first location. As we were constructing our first location, we did, mean, my background is in marketing. And so I was able to start to kind of, what would you call that?

Dan Abel (16:25.685)
feed or seed the concept with different press and reporters and all that fun stuff. We had the website go live and this is, you this timeline here is, we'll call it the beginning of 2019 when I'm starting to see the concept out and the response was really positive. Hey, this is a refreshing idea. It's something outside of tech that's innovative that we get to talk about. So we just, we had a lot of people jumping on board quickly.

Ramon Vela (16:30.734)
Mm-hmm.

Dan Abel (16:53.767)
No one knew exactly what it was. so maybe that was also some of the reason why so many people wanted to talk about it. But what was so incredible about that period of time, going to the second part of your question, is that all of this press was essentially the way that we opened up our funnel to lead generating for finding new entrepreneurs that wanted to launch brands.

And so the first five brands that we launched all came to us because they saw someone write about us in, whether it was a local newspaper or a national industry thread. And so our first five brands, one of them was from San Diego. One of them was from, gosh, I'm gonna forget, Cincinnati. And then I think the other three were all local to Chicago.

but they all found us reactively. Thanks to all this press now fast forward. mean, we have a, an application online. have a team that's kind of like, you know, in the record business, like a scout, a talent scout out there trying to find cool ideas, cool opportunities for us to be able to support. But back then it was entirely reactive and it was, and it was based off of just a, you know, a handful of very friendly newspapers saying, what is this thing?

Ramon Vela (18:08.845)
you

Ramon Vela (18:22.51)
And can you name a couple, I mean, not those original five, but just some brands that you've worked with that maybe people might know about.

Dan Abel (18:32.389)
sure. So one of the fun things about being able to lower the barriers to entry is you start to see a clear reflection of what the world looks like. And so we've launched 21 brands to date. Of those 21 brands, nine of them are founded by women. Chicago is only their second black-owned brewery in Chicago ever. Their name is Monkey Town. We've launched an Indian-inspired brewery.

called Azadi Brewing. Azadi means freedom. We've launched two hard kombucheries. One of them is called Luna Bay Hard Kombucha, which can be found nationwide. And then you've got diversity of people, but then you also have diversity of products, right? So I mentioned the beer brands, but then the hard kombucha, there's a ready to drink cocktail brand called Devious. There's a...

pickle beer brand called Donna's Pickle Beer, which is also nationwide. So yeah, so a lot of fun ones. I would envision if you're in the Midwest, you've undoubtedly encountered us in a few different scenarios or one of our brands in a few different scenarios. But if you're across the rest of the country, Mash Gang is a non-alcoholic beer brand that we've done well. I mentioned Luna Bay and Donna's Pickle Beer and then a couple others.

trying to think. Yeah.

Ramon Vela (20:00.43)
Well, Luna Bay I've had on the show. So I definitely know that one. and, and yeah. And some of the others, I'm sure other, other people listening might know. and this whole beverage space has been, has always been really interesting. And I think in, in recent years it's gotten even more interesting and there's been different trends. you know, you know, a beer and then of course, like hard seltzers.

Dan Abel (20:04.053)
That's right, you've had Bridget.

Ramon Vela (20:27.552)
And then Kabucha had its moment. mean, all of these are still continuing, but they have these little moments and then they come back and then you don't see them again and they come back again. so Kabucha is another one. we've had, like I said, Luna Bay, we've had some others. then you see cocktails, like cocktails in a can or wine in a can or things like that. And then of course now,

the big trend is sort of like non-alcoholic alternatives. So non-alcoholic and then CBD or hemp type brands like a Breeze or a Can. So there's lots of different trends. for me that if I like, I'm assuming, so correct me if I'm wrong, if I'm you, I'd be, it's like every day is like an exciting opportunity because there's so many different.

Dan Abel (21:00.821)
Mm-hmm.

Ramon Vela (21:25.166)
places and avenues to go and to help people be creative and for you to be creative. Whether it's non-alcoholic space, which is a kind of a brand new space and or not brand new, but you know, it's having its moment now or some other place. I mean, it's not just about the home brew beer or anything like that, which is great, but it just feels like you have so many opportunities now in so many different areas.

Dan Abel (21:53.589)
Totally. One of the fun things that we get to kind of see is, so because we had that application process, right? You go to our website, there's a drop down menu and you can apply to be an incubated brand with Pilot Project. We've had over 1200 brands apply or 1200 entrepreneurs apply to be a part of our program to which, as I said, we've only accepted thus far 21 of them.

But when they come in, we see the trends just based off of what's pitched. So when we first opened up, because what I had been communicating at the time was beer and the craft beer, 2019 looks a little bit different than it does today. That was the trend. I'll say the first 100 applications were all beer brands.

But then, but then that's also the time when hard kombucha started to kind of come up in popularity. People were saying, what's this thing? So then we had a smattering of hard kombucha brands pitch us. We started to see hard seltzer as, you know, White Claw was, was, was finding its success. But then the trend was kind of projecting that White Claw would do even better because we had another 200 hard seltzer applicants in the, you know, 2020 time period.

So then we see the ready to drink cocktail trend. Right now we're, as you said, squarely in the non-alcoholic craze. We launched our first non-alcoholic brand in August of 2023. What's wild is that brand has already been acquired, not even two years later. But the most common ones that we're getting pitched right now are non-alcoholic. But then there's this...

Ramon Vela (23:31.8)
Wow.

Dan Abel (23:39.125)
I won't say it because it'll come out. You'll start to see it probably proliferate over the next 12 to 18 months, but there is another trend that's happening that I'm starting to see. I, what I love about this application process is we haven't accepted one of these brands yet, but you know, very well, we could launch the first one. but it is a, it's a common trend that I get to, that we get to see, you know, on a month to month basis.

Ramon Vela (23:48.941)
Hmm.

Ramon Vela (24:00.864)
you

Ramon Vela (24:08.802)
Wow, that is amazing. Do you have like a newsletter or anything like that that you share this kind of stuff with?

Dan Abel (24:15.583)
So yes, if you go to our website, pilotprojectbrewing.com, you can sign up for the newsletter there. should be the annoying pop-up that first hits you. And we'll discuss, in that newsletter, discuss, of course, what's going on at our facilities, because we have a few different tasting rooms and restaurants. But in there is kind of our editorial on the State of the Union, too.

Ramon Vela (24:38.86)
Yeah, no, I mean, I would find it extremely valuable if I was someone in the industry, even just a buyer, like at a retail, a wholesale or retail place. I would find that incredibly interesting. So anyone out there listening, this is definitely a newsletter you want to sign up for. So I want to talk a little bit about, you

Or dive into like how you help people and kind of break it down because you have this really interesting sort of model and Instructure where you have this incubator, but you have these restaurants and these tasting rooms and things like that But before we do that Let's see let's let me ask you if you can share any type of Insights or lessons learned because I've kind of seen it. I've seen it from a lot of different places

and I've seen a lot of struggle. So whether it's a non alcoholic or the beverage, area, you know, like I remember that I had this like coffee slash alcohol brand on. I mean, they're all, it runs a gamut, but one of the things I've always noticed is that many of them are, are, are created by people who don't have any background in the, beverage space and.

They just go through a tremendous amount of struggle, you know, and they spend a lot of their own money creating, creating this and they're sinking tens of thousands of dollars in there. And I mean, this is like real money, you know, and, and, sometimes, and a lot of times it doesn't work out. And, and so I admire when people do, when people take that, that leap of faith and try something. And for me, it's always better that you try it than not try it all.

But still, you know, there's gotta be a better way for them to learn. And this is why I was so interested in having you on the show, because I hate for people to spend so much money and then not have anything to show for it or move forward or maybe choose the wrong product or maybe they didn't do enough product validation or whatever it might be. And so I know this is kind of general ask, but is there any sort of, I don't know,

Ramon Vela (26:54.722)
best practices, any type of things that you would tell, like if someone's listening to this and thinking about starting their own, you know, beverage, are there a list of things that they should be doing or is there, I don't know, lessons or insights that you want to share with them to kind of give them, maybe a little leg up.

Dan Abel (27:15.199)
I mean, Ramon, I need to bring you into my investor pitch meetings because everything that you just identified is what I try to argue, know, pilot helps solve for. And yes, we can absolutely get into that in a second. From a like best practices piece, there are dozens of areas to opine, right? You have to look at our industry and remember that there was a three tier system on the alcohol side.

Right? So that you wouldn't be impacted by the three tier system necessarily in the non-alcoholic side. So that is different. But if you have a great idea, if you're a great brand builder, you have to remember that the way that our industry is set up, it doesn't mean that you, the brand builder get to have a one-on-one relationship with your customers around every.

Ramon Vela (27:45.4)
Mm-hmm.

Dan Abel (28:14.453)
In fact, there are two, if not three other entities separating you from your customer to where you have to go find them and you have to figure out and you have to build that direct relationship maybe in an indirect way or indirectly with how your customers are actually engaging with the product. That's why you see so many beverage brands, know, sponsoring festivals and present at all these different in real life style events because

They are working with producers to make their product. They're then working with distributors to distribute their product across the country. And then they're working with retailers who are the ones selling their product to the consumer. There's no way to build a direct relationship with your consumers unless you just go where they are. And so that's a long way of me saying you have to look at all of the different avenues that exist in this industry and figure out where you are going to be the subject matter expert and then surround yourself.

Ramon Vela (29:00.877)
Hmm.

Dan Abel (29:13.811)
with other people that are the subject matter experts in the areas where you might have a blind spot. To me, when I say this in the most simplest way, is I am not a solo entrepreneur. I have my co-founder Jordan, I have our head brewer, Glen Allen, and our director of hospitality, Mary, and our brewery manager, Damien. All of these people

know so much more about their area of expertise than I do. And if I didn't have them out of the gate, Pilot Project would not exist. We would have flopped overnight. And so it's okay to be a solo entrepreneur if that is the pursuit that you have to do, but you damn well better build an incredible team right away. And that might mean sharing equity, that might mean...

Ramon Vela (30:07.17)
Mm-hmm.

Dan Abel (30:11.133)
raising a couple bucks that you can pay them, but that is do not go into this industry alone because there are too many aspects, there are too many facets that could trip you up. So that's one of those pieces where a pilot project gets to help solve for it by the merit of the beautiful 130 person team that we've been able to establish.

Ramon Vela (30:26.967)
Hmm.

Dan Abel (30:40.603)
I still, someone pitching us through our application process, I'm still going to tell them, you need a co-founder or you need someone else involved.

Ramon Vela (30:52.718)
And so beyond that, in terms of like, let's say they're gonna go on their own. And obviously they, like I said, they probably shouldn't, or like you said, they shouldn't. Do you recommend that they start small? Do you recommend that they, well, I guess maybe,

The one thing you, I think you, you that's incorporated in what you just said is, is market validation, right? Because I've seen people create some really interesting products and even, even while they reach, when they reach my show. And by the way, I sometimes have people who are just barely launching or pre-launch every now and then. I like, I like to have people who are already established or have some sort of established customer base.

Dan Abel (31:27.423)
Mm-hmm.

Ramon Vela (31:48.962)
but sometimes I have them early on and I look at products and I think, you know, that's an interesting product or an interesting beverage, but I just don't know. Like, I don't know, you know? And then also I think it might be a good product. Like I had someone who had a yerba mate type product and it was...

Dan Abel (32:09.909)
Mm-hmm.

Ramon Vela (32:13.078)
I mean, I know you're Romante. I've known about it for years in Brazil. It's very popular and so forth. And I thought, this is, this is a great product, but they didn't have a lot of money. and I, and later on I started noticing much larger companies coming in and doing their, their thing. So, you know, there's, might have a great product, but then you may not just not have the money to kind of, you know, make a dent in the marketplace and eventually.

If it's a trend like Yerba Mate and others come in, you're just unable to kind of compete against it on the shelf if retail is gonna be that place you're gonna go to. So it seems to me like one of those things is market validation, right? But also like understanding the capital that is gonna be required, right?

Dan Abel (33:00.113)
Yeah, so I think maybe it's even better to kind of talk about it with respect to what pilot project does, because we have in a sense created a, you know, it's not a one size fits all system for bringing a product to market, but it is a toolkit that can be applied to many different scenarios. The idea of start small is absolutely necessary.

Why? not because you might not have a great, it's not that you don't have a great idea. It's that like you should, you should be getting customer feedback as early on in the process as possible. way that we talk in tech about MVPs, Minimifiable Products, same thing applies in the CPG space. So test with making small batches. But then when we're talking about product validation, it's not about, hey Ramon, do you like my beverage? Yes or no. It's about comparative data. If I can have, if I can hand you my

beverage and you tell me that you like it, I then need to have hand you my beverage next to five other products of a similar variety and I need you to then pick it again. And so when you think about the production side of our business, we can take a concept brew, produce a tiny bit of it and then produce a ton of it and scale it nationwide. But what's most important to get to that point is after we make that first tiny bit,

I put it in our tasting rooms where we have customers coming in who know they're walking in conditioned to, I'm in an environment where I'm going to try a bunch of innovative beverages. And in this environment of innovative beverages, I'm going to choose one. And then I might choose that one again to have a second or a third or a fourth. Hopefully you're cut off at that point. But people are seeing comparative data in that environment, which says,

Out of the 10,000 people that came to Pilot Project over the weekend, 9,000 of them chose your product or 9,900 didn't choose your product. Sure, they may have liked it, but they didn't pick it. And that's information that could help you pivot at that small level. Maybe it was the branding, maybe it was the color, maybe it was the flavor or the carbonation level. All of those different pieces.

Ramon Vela (34:59.234)
Hmm.

Ramon Vela (35:06.359)
Hmm.

Dan Abel (35:18.867)
can impact your product. So you hit it right on the head. That validation is necessary, but the validation is made not by do you like this or not. It's by comparative data.

Ramon Vela (35:30.35)
I like that. Well, let's talk a little bit then about if I am, so I kind of, guess go back, if I can go back and rephrase my original question about insights or best practices. So let's go through that. If I am a person interested, I have an idea for a beverage, I'm interested in starting a brand and I find you and I want to, you know, I have a little bit of seed money to get started.

What does that process look like? So I've applied, you've seen my idea, whatever, and then you take my application, you approve it. What does that process look like?

Dan Abel (36:10.965)
Sure, so Yes, you would apply through our online portal, which is much like applying for college, right? You're giving us a snackable bit of information about you about your business for the things that you're looking to do if we like what we see and remember that we're a portfolio business, right? So we're not you know, just because there's a trend of non-alcoholic Products right now doesn't mean that the next 10 things we do are not like we want to look at it as a portfolio

But if we like what we see, we're going to get on the phone with you. We're going have a conversation. We're going to make sure that you're the right kind of crazy, right? Because entrepreneurs do have to be a little crazy. Then we're going to bring you in for an audition, which is essentially like a shark tank style. You pitch us your product. We do a panel. We talk about it with you. We make sure that you can be one, a business leader, two, a brand visionary, and then three, that you actually have a product that we can get behind or that we think has market tenacity.

Provided those things fit, we accept you. We begin by producing, like I said, small batches, what's called a 10 barrel batch, is equivalent to, gosh, what is that equivalent to? That's like 5,000 pints of beer, I believe. So we'll create these small pilot batches out of the gate. We'll exclusively sell them in our tasting rooms.

So in those tasting rooms, you're now already at the information gathering point, right? We're validating your product in different markets because we have multiple tasting rooms and we're validating your product across, you know, against 25, 30 other offerings. So we're learning really quickly. Once we see the benchmarks hit or the different pieces, the different boxes checked,

we begin scaling your product in two different ways. One, production sizes. Our smallest tank, like I mentioned, is 10 barrels. Our largest is 240. So the numbers are, I think I had it backwards, it's like 2,500 pints, or maybe even less, is in a 10 barrel batch, and then 240 is quite a bit more. But we're scaling you there. But then we're also scaling you by the merit of our distribution network. Pilot Project has built relationships with

Dan Abel (38:38.067)
with retailers across the country as well as distributors across the country. So we have our trusted network of, we'll call it a high touch retailer that just trusts us to send them new, innovative, unique SKUs. That's kind of that first step into market penetration now that you're, that we validated you in the tasting room. So maybe we're sending you to 50 different retailers and

Chicago and 50 different retailers in Milwaukee or Madison or somewhere else and we're getting real-time information from these retailers in two ways one subjective They're telling us if it's doing well there and these groups know that there are kind of our VIPs But then we're also getting the data of repeat orders. you buy it again? And how if you did how quickly did you buy it again? Did you buy it in multiple formats? If you're a bar, did you buy it in package as well as a keg?

And so we're getting all these little bits of information, which is ultimately telling our team now to start broadening the tentacles and expanding you into more locations. Whether that's a thousand spots across Illinois or the Midwest, or it's bringing you to California and then New York, Massachusetts, Texas, what have you. So that's kind of the ongoing evolution of what ultimately ends up happening. And we are with you sort of every step.

Ramon Vela (39:55.694)
you

Dan Abel (40:03.081)
the way. All that being said, we don't do it all for you. We're not your crutch. We are a support system. So we still need you to be the entrepreneur. We still need you to be the brand visionary. We need you to be boots on the ground and all these different markets, talking to retailers, getting insights from your own customers and having that intimate relationship with your brand that you are the business leader. We are just, in theory, everything else for you.

Ramon Vela (40:09.304)
Hmm.

Dan Abel (40:30.665)
This kind of goes back to the you talking about the financials and all those pieces. Our goal is every brand has to raise money or not. That's not true, but most brands have to raise money at some point. It's my hope that you're, raising money further down, you know, the path to where you can assert a higher valuation of your business. You have more data to compel investors. You're not giving away half of your company just to be able to grow it.

Ramon Vela (40:43.15)
Mm-hmm.

Ramon Vela (41:00.183)
Hmm.

Dan Abel (41:00.533)
So that's the nature of the business. But yeah, that's kind of, I mean, I'm given the abbreviated version, but that is where and how we support these brands from concept to national scale.

Ramon Vela (41:16.754)
And I know that that's an abbreviated form, but just kind of what I was mentioning earlier about things like packaging or bottling or cans. I had an interesting conversation with the founder of a brand called Wild Wonder, Rosa Lee. And she mentioned about how, like what a significant change going from a bottle

to a can was. And those are one of those lessons learned is like, you know, maybe someone like you would have said, oh, you know, that, that, that's probably better to go through a can versus a bottle, you know, but I mean, she had to learn it sort of the hard way and she, and she did, and she now she, that's why she talks about it. And she said, that was just a huge, uh, uh, change for them in their business, uh, going from a can, you know, it sounds obvious, um, that

that would help out with so many different areas, even like shipping or, you know, the weight of the shipping, but also just like how, how people store it and where it's stored and the breakage, you know, all that kind of stuff. and then, and there's like little things, you know, like the, how the can looks, do you guys help out with those type of things, you know, in terms of like the tape, like, like, I love what you talked about in terms of tasting, you're, getting data from folks and I'm wondering, did it also, does that also apply to like,

the look of the can and does it actually motivate or move people or things like that.

Dan Abel (42:48.191)
We will, so within the world of, we'll call it marketing and design, that's my background, that's my passion, but I also recognize that if I'm the only one giving you an opinion, then all of the brands that we're going to be churning out will become one homogenous blob. So we will absolutely advise brands in terms of, hey, this is something to think about.

Ramon Vela (43:07.384)
if

Dan Abel (43:14.953)
But where we try to be hands off is doing anything too prescriptive to where it might influence the actual vibe, if you will. But there have been scenarios where, and cans are the most relevant, but tap handles for beer is a thing too, where a brand doesn't put their name front and center. And it's because they're trying to be coy or cool or what have you, but they forget that when your product is sitting on the shelf,

the way that it's displayed is out of your control. And so it's in your best interest to ensure that the customer, no matter how that thing is displayed, is getting exposed to your brand in one shape, one way shape or form. And so we call it facing. A retail store may not face your cans the correct way. And so we'll...

Ramon Vela (43:50.136)
Mm-hmm.

Dan Abel (44:12.181)
push them to think about that aspect. Or there was an example, you've seen those cardboard flats that cans are occasionally sitting in when they're on the floor or there's a stack in a grocery store. We had one brand where they came in and the visual was so beautiful, but the entire visual was below the part of that cardboard that you'd see and then everything else on the top was white.

Ramon Vela (44:20.781)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Ramon Vela (44:33.855)
Yeah.

Dan Abel (44:37.875)
And so every can looked identical and there was actually no branding represented if you didn't pick up the four pack or the six pack out of the flat. So it is, it's little things like that, that we will always lend, know, feedback or, know, have you thought about this? And that we like to contribute to. You're spot on though about all the other blind spots. Like one reason why you'd go from a bottle to a can.

Ramon Vela (44:44.412)
yeah.

Dan Abel (45:07.397)
is quality, right? But the other is, well, cans are heck of a lot lighter than bottles are. And so shipping costs can be cut in half on both sides. You have to receive the cans and you also have to send them out after they're produced. You're paying for shipping twice. And if that pallet of bottles is twice the weight or 10 times the weight of a pallet of cans, you're going to be paying more.

Ramon Vela (45:32.748)
Okay.

Dan Abel (45:35.881)
And so there are little things like that throughout the entire supply chain or process of bringing a product to market that we get to kind of pepper them. I also just love the idea that, or the fact that because we are launching, you know, a new brand thereabouts every two to three months, is every brand that comes after the brands that came before them are basically being built on the shoulders of those that came before them. So we're not just learning from the mistakes that Pilot Project made.

or they're learning from the mistakes that the cohort of brands that have come through our incubator accelerator have learned.

Ramon Vela (46:12.121)
Yeah. Well, and I guess that also applies and correct me if I'm wrong, also applies probably to the formulation, right? Or the recipe, however you guys refer to it that because what I've noticed, like for instance, in the now and this is across the board, I'm sure, but it's fresh in my mind because I've talked to some of the non-alcoholic space because a lot of people will, like when I talk to non-brand people, like just my friends and whatnot who aren't in this world or don't talk to these people and whatnot.

And they're always just telling me like, well, like what's the difference between non-alcoholic and alcoholic? like, aren't I just like drinking juice or drinking juice with carbonated water or, you know what mean? Like they're just thinking it's like, what's the big deal? Like it's it's nothing. Um, and I always tell them, it's like, well, you know, there are, there are some brands out there that really craft an amazing formulation and they, they,

Dan Abel (46:53.333)
Mm-hmm.

Ramon Vela (47:10.36)
they try to mimic not necessarily the alcohol per se, but they try to mimic the feeling with a lot of really innovative things, which is, know, like there's one brand that I had on the show where they wanted that little warm tickling feeling that you get sometimes when you drink. And so I don't remember exactly what it was, but she had a name for it. And then I talked to another person and they had, they also had their own name for what, what the experience that they wanted to do, which was again, sort of mimicking that.

Dan Abel (47:26.463)
Sure.

Ramon Vela (47:39.57)
of that tickling in your throat or whatever that was. And so these are all things that are in our mind as we drink them, they add that experience of drinking something, not something that just doesn't have alcohol, but something that is unique and different than just having a juice with carbonated water or whatever it is, right? Like I'm making light of that, but.

You know what mean? Like something that's just, that is actually a really cool formulated drink. And I'm assuming that you guys also help out with that kind of stuff too, right?

Dan Abel (48:17.247)
For sure. It's a huge part. Again, I was oversimplifying the entire process. You think about the day zero product formulation, R &D, if you will, and a piece that you're getting at with non-alcoholic products is remember that fermentation character. Fermentation does two things. One, it does create alcohol or distillation, too. It creates alcohol, but it also creates flavor, character, all these other aspects.

that contribute to your enjoyment of a beverage. And so if you remove the alcohol piece, you still have all these other aspects, this character that you have to try and find a way to emulate or evolve in one way, or form. And so I think about the process of making specifically a non-alcoholic beverage is if you're trying to emulate

a feeling, nostalgia, what have you, or you're trying to promote the concept of terroir, right? Terroir is the, agri- it's more agricultural focused. You have all of these different pieces. So long as you understand what your, what your like gold star is, you know, alcohol is just one ingredient or by-product from the fermentation process. So if you, if you, redact that piece, if you take that piece out, there's all these other tools, all those-

all these other aspects of the beverage that you get to kind of work toward. I don't know if I'm just dragging on, but I think that the thing that I love and I see us as like what we're always trying to pursue by the way of adding botanicals or all those different pieces is what appeals to the five senses, right? On your tongue, or the five different flavors on your tongue, but the five senses that you have as a human.

where we get to capture all of those pieces, smell, what it looks like, what it tastes like, the mouthfeel, which is the touch, right? All of those aspects are what contribute to your quote unquote carbonated juice that we can kind of figure out and manipulate.

Ramon Vela (50:29.038)
Yeah.

Ramon Vela (50:34.05)
Yeah. And I have to say that after tasting some of them, I'm just really in awe.

of how they formulated their products because it really does feel like an elevated experience. It's not alcohol, but it is an elevated experience. I just can tell there's been a lot of TLC going into that formulation because it is an elevated experience. isn't just like drinking something with no alcohol in it. It's really, it's an experience. mean, I don't want to drag on that, but still I can appreciate it.

I want to be respectful of your time. And I had a couple more last questions. One is, um, the, the restaurant and the brewery component of it. So my assumption is, and correct me if I'm wrong, that, you know, this is, this is part of the strategy of helping to gather that data that you're talking about in terms of tasting, tasting rooms and, and, and trying out what real, what the real world is going to.

how the real world is going to react to that particular, you know, product. is that correct? I mean, because now you have several locations, which is pretty cool. I mean, it's kind of like a side business too, in a way. We're part of the business.

Dan Abel (51:52.807)
Right. I mean, the tasting rooms, the restaurants, they are, they're your first source of data. You're, you're spot on. but they're also your first place to your brand, right? They're, they're the first place for you to connect with customers and which is still tied to data. But it is, I think about this every year, we host an event called pilot project best where we invite all of our brands that we've either incubated or collaborated with over the years to come together and, and sample their, their products to.

the hundreds of guests that we bring into the facility. And that's a brand building moment. That is building connection with people that is no different than Budweiser sponsoring Coachella. And so it's a really important moment. It's a really important brand building experience that you get to do showcasing your product at a pilot project location. It's your first point of connection.

Ramon Vela (52:53.175)
And I would imagine too that from a consumer standpoint, knowing who you are or going to your place or one of your places and then having that experience, you are bringing people together, consumers, bringing consumers together that expect a variety of of tasting experiences, right? Like they go in there.

wanting to taste new, new products or new, know, new, new drinks and new beverages. And then probably come to expect like, Hey, I, I'm going to, I want to tell them what I think about this. this is, know, like, so maybe you get kind of people who are connoisseurs and others who are just like, you know, people interested in new drinks and things like that, which I think is pretty cool too. I mean, you've, you, you're probably created this really cool.

reputation and experience with consumers as well, which is, it's always great. mean, because you you ideally want consumers who are going to give you feedback and sometimes it's hard to get feedback from people. And in this way, you've almost created an environment where people are expecting to get feedback, I would imagine. So I'm just kind of assuming there too.

Dan Abel (54:06.194)
Yes, so mean, the fun thing about owning these spaces or having these spaces is that you don't get very many people that come in upset, right? They're there to be happy. They're there to see friends, family, hang out, enjoy themselves, do work. We have a lot of people that just come to our spaces to co-work during the day. But what comes out of that is really authentic interactions with our staff. So we get to, of course...

You may have come into pilot project not knowing what pilot project is, right? We're still a developing brand. And so it's an opportunity to educate those people. But then if you are coming in knowing exactly what pilot project is, you are more inclined to participate in our purpose, which is, you I want you to try a lot of stuff. I want you to have one or two flights, not necessarily just come in for the one, the same beer over and over and over again.

so I think that we get to, we get to participate in that, conditioning that happens with our guests over time of being open-minded. It's one of the best ways to bring a new brand into the world is to make sure that the person that's on the other side of the, of the table, trying it is informed that giving their feedback is necessary. Don't just tell me you like it because you don't want to have an awkward conversation about how it makes the back of your throat tingle.

Ramon Vela (55:25.614)
Thank

Dan Abel (55:30.357)
Right? Like you actually want to give, we want from you, your positives, your negatives, or your, interesting. didn't, I don't know why you did it this way. Which people are just more willing to give. We're also developing an application to actually allow for that even easier. That'll come out hopefully in the next couple of months here, our beta version of it. But that's a really important piece.

Ramon Vela (55:58.488)
Wow. I love that. and I always really love when I go, ever I go someplace and, a brewery or someplace with my wife. I don't really drink as much, but she, she still enjoys it. But I always, I always liked the, when they come over and they have these like smaller glasses, not like a full glass, but the smaller glasses for you to kind of like taste, like you can, like they give you like a variety of them, like, I don't know, three or four or something like that.

Dan Abel (56:21.429)
Mm-hmm.

Ramon Vela (56:26.912)
and you can try them and they're different and you know, they're young brands and things like that. And they want your feedback and they are love. I love hearing or I love watching people who love what they're doing and love the craft and I love hearing them talk about the craft and all the different things about the taste and about how it's made and you know, all of that. So I really appreciate that.

But Dan, this has been fantastic. Thank you so much. I want to be respected for your time. You've got so much on your plate right now, so I don't want to take up too much of your time. One question I did have is that you mentioned you're a musician. What do you play?

Dan Abel (57:03.445)
Well, I was a singer-songwriter when I was in LA, because that was the only way to make money, so I wasn't sharing it with a bunch of people. But I play most instruments other than drums. I need someone keeping a beat for me. But guitar and singing are my two passions.

Ramon Vela (57:08.021)
Thank you.

Ramon Vela (57:15.566)
.

Ramon Vela (57:21.068)
nice, nice. And I always thought we can talk about this in a future episode, I was my my my ideas that musicians or artists, should say artists and entrepreneurs share so much in common. kind of feel like entrepreneurs are the artists of the business world. Like they create and mold something out of nothing or, you know, out of a block of

or whatever, or stone, and they create something and they bring it to life. And then this thing many times has a life of its own and kind of goes on its own. And so I always thought that artists and so forth are kind of like the, or entrepreneurs are the artists of the business world. So I always like.

Dan Abel (58:10.389)
I always love the concept too of with respect to artistry, whether it's music or painting or anything is, and then of course to your analogy, the business world and entrepreneurship is that there's, I make the joke that it's 70 % product and 70 % marketing, but the reality of...

entrepreneurship or artistry is it's 70 % logic and 70 % creativity. you have to be able to, spatially, have to be able to understand what you're going to do with a painting, right? When you're writing a song, there's logic to how different pieces fall into place. When you're creating a business, you know those different things that you have to hit to understand what success looks like. So artistry is not just creativity. It's so much left and right brain working together.

Ramon Vela (58:42.52)
Hehehe.

Dan Abel (59:04.67)
And I do, I agree, it's spot on and I love that analogy.

Ramon Vela (59:09.71)
Well, this has been fantastic, Dan. You're welcome back anytime. I can't wait to dive into and look at some of the brands that you've incubated besides Luna. And by the way, feel free to always invite them over, not to put you on the spot or anything, but I always love to highlight great brands.

And let us know where to go. So if you remind us of the website, social media, and then if you want to highlight or shout out any particular brands and or your restaurants locations, please feel free to do that.

Dan Abel (59:42.069)
Sure. So we are pilotprojectbrewing.com is the website on Instagram. We are at pilot project brewing or at pilot project MKE for our Milwaukee location. If you want to come visit us, currently we have two spots, one in Chicago, one in Milwaukee. We're adding a second location in Chicago, um, in may of 2025, but then pay attention because there are a couple other spots that might percolate across the country in the, in the coming months here.

Ramon Vela (01:00:12.304)
fantastic. And I was in Chicago last year, I wish I would have known that, known of you guys before that. This is fantastic. Thank you so much for sharing. I love what you do. You're doing, like I said, I hear it from the brands that we interview here, how much they struggle on building their beverage brands. And so I can really appreciate what you do. So thank you.

for helping other entrepreneurs. I think we're on the same mission here, because this is why I do what I do here on the show, is I'm trying to bring awareness to these brands and help them have more people learn about them. So thank you so much for that. Beyond that, everyone, we have just had Dan Able, who is the co-founder and CEO of Pilot Project Brewing. We gave the website. We'll have all those links on our podcast description, which you can find on

on Apple, Spotify, pretty much anywhere you want to listen to podcasts, or you can even go to the story of our brand.com and you can listen to it there. This will eventually also be a video. So you'll be able to go to our YouTube channel and all of that. then so beyond that, stay safe, stay sane, stay healthy. And one last thing, we've all been going through a lot of stuff, the pandemic and economy and politics and wars and everything else. Let's just do ourselves a favor and remember that we're all going through something.

and just let's just be kinder to each other. And if we can do that, we can make this human experience a better one. So thank you from the bottom of my heart for listening to another episode of the story of a brand.